Shea butter from Burkina Faso

Crushed shea nuts

The shea butter for Dr. Hauschka products comes from Burkina Faso. In 2001, we provided the stimulus for an organically certified project in the region around Diarabakoko in the south-west of the country. Today 2,200 women from 17 villages are involved in the project and collect the shea nuts from several protected, organically certified collection areas.

Women's gold: Shea butter

The collectors in the project village of Diarabakoko independently organise themselves in a producer association. This is a women-only association, as is common and natural in Africa. Shea butter has always been a women’s thing and only they are authorised to harvest the nuts. The women named their association ‘IKEUFA’ (Faire bien et meilleur de Diarabakoko), which can be roughly translated as: Do good and better things in Diarabakoko. Their earnings from the shea nut sales enable them to pay for their children’s school fees – so that all of them, rather than just the lucky few can go to school. They are also able to pay for basic essentials like food and medicines.

Shea nuts

Process within the country

After harvesting the nuts within the scope of the project, the women shell, dry and place them into interim storage in warehouses that are co-financed by WALA. The nearby organically certified company Agrifaso, with its head office in Bobo-Dioulasso, purchases the nuts and uses transporters to move them straight from the villages to its small processing unit. There, the shelled nuts are pressed under warm conditions and turned into shea butter. Agrifaso has 40 permanent employees, who ensure the continual production of the shea butter in consistently good quality. Finally, the raw shea butter is subjected to an organically certified refining process to reduce its highly characteristic natural odour.

1) Shea tree fruit

2) The additional earnings from processing the shea nuts go to the children. The extra money enables them all to go to fee-charging schools.

Shea butter is obtained from the nuts of the karite tree, which is a native of Africa. This soft plant fat has many skin-nurturing properties. It helps the skin to preserve moisture. The shea butter used in Dr.Hauschka Skin Care products is obtained from a special cultivation project in Burkina Faso.

Shea butter is obtained from the nuts of the karite tree (Butyrospermum parkii), which is a native of Africa.

Creating a better world • Sustainable partnerships all around the world

In creating the formulations for Dr. Hauschka skin care and make-up products, we draw on the many things that nature has to offer. For example, medicinal plants, botanical oils and waxes and genuine essential oils, naturally of organic or biodynamic quality wherever possible. Many of the medicinal plants used grow in our own biodynamic medicinal herb garden or in the fields on our Demeter farm over the road from Head Office, the Sonnenhof. We also purchase other raw materials from regional sources. Our climate is simply not suitable for growing some of the plant species from which we obtain raw materials.

Fragrant roses for essential rose oil, almond trees and jojoba bushes, for example. We want to purchase these in organic quality for our formulations as well. To do this, we sometimes have to instigate the production of organic raw materials in the first place. Essential rose oil, mango butter, castor oil and shea butter are just a few of the raw materials to which this applies. We support farmers financially and with our knowledge of organic farming. We help them obtain organic certifications and guarantee certain purchase volumes.

It goes without saying that we are committed to fair trade conditions and social responsibility, characterised by mutual trust and independent development opportunities. We therefore have a solid and long-term working relationship with many organic farming partners, including ones who grow almonds and olives in Spain, jojoba in Argentina and macadamia nuts in Kenya. We help our partners increase their production capacities and, where desired, finance regular visits to them by biodynamic consultants.

The aim of such involvement is always to enable the partners to develop commercially and achieve economic stability that makes them independent from us.

We also believe that such partnerships should involve good local working conditions. We have encouraged developments such as the creation of social areas for the workers of an oil mill and supported the construction of suitable sanitary facilities, for example. After all, it is not only financial independence that is important to us, but also better social conditions for people locally.